


Glitch in the System: Spaces Between

by SystemGlitch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, guest star: vaguely emotionally competent gabriel reyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 16:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12485752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SystemGlitch/pseuds/SystemGlitch
Summary: By E.Broken bridges happen.





	Glitch in the System: Spaces Between

When they returned to the mansion that next morning, Akande spared them no moment of peace to resettle: Sombra had a pile of intel to analyze, and Widow was almost immediately sent off on another surveillance mission. They hadn’t even finished unpacking and she was gone.

It felt like ripping a band aid off a wound that hadn’t healed yet. They were too fresh; too fragile to send back into chaos, and while Sombra missed Widow terribly, she also knew that this was a feeling she’d either need to accustom herself to or seal herself off from. For the first time, she was worried - legitimately and truly  _concerned_  for someone other than herself, and while Widow was good, no one was perfect. Sombra was suddenly acutely aware of the danger the sniper walked into every time they set out on a mission, and that worry threatened to consume her.

Instead, she dug into her work, shifting her focus from internal moping to hyperproductivity. It felt good - a return to something she knew, something that had been her companion for far longer than any person, and was certainly less difficult to manage. After two full days, barely sleeping and scraping sides of the deep web even she found repugnant, she returned to Akande with some of her best work yet.

Akande was silent as he scrolled through the data she’d mined on the contacts he’d given her.

“Good work, Sombra,” he said, nodding in approval, filing the data away for who knew what purpose. He had his own motivations and Sombra was content to let at least a little of Akande’s endgame remain a mystery so long as it didn’t interfere with hers.

“Are you surprised?” she asked, smirking. Akande, for all his oversight and machinations, still didn’t grasp just how good she was. Some day it would be to his detriment; right now it was simply an opportunity to gloat.

“No,” he replied, steepling his fingers. “Just glad to have the two of you back.”

“Glad to be back at it,” Sombra replied, nurturing a familiar sense of self-satisfaction as she excused herself from the room and went on about her morning.

Widowmaker, apparently, returned the night before, but Sombra didn’t realize until they ran into each other at the coffeepot. Sombra had filled the basket that morning, so the brew was exceptionally dark and extremely strong.

“Good to see you in one piece,” she said, smiling warmly at the sniper. What she’d actually wanted to say was  _“I see you’re back, want to do unprofessional things to each other in the attic?”_  but at 7am it seemed presumptuous even to her. “How was your grand return to Talon duty?”

“Unremarkable,” Widowmaker said, her tone impassioned as always, but lacking even the small spark she’d fostered back at the chateau.

“You wanna blow this joint?” she asked, leaning against the counter, close to the spider without touching her. They hadn’t really discussed life after the chateau aside from the occasional joke or rueful recognition that their honeymoon was over. It occurred to her now, over the most awkward cup of coffee she’d ever had, that perhaps they should have.

“I have work to do, Sombra,” Widow sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “As do you.”

“Right, sure, but it’s not going anywhere. We could go, I don’t know - get gelato or something.” She reached out to touch Widowmaker’s arm, and to her surprise, the spider backed away from her.

“It’s the middle of December,” Widowmaker replied in a chiding voice Sombra hadn’t heard in over a month. Back before the shift in their relationship, she’d coded that tone as a challenge; a hilarious call to arms to push the surly sniper out of her comfort zone.

Now it just felt like a slap.

Sombra dropped her arm to her side. “Or not. That’s fine, too.”

Widowmaker frowned, looking conflicted and as though she were about to speak when the sound of footsteps called both their attention elsewhere.

“Morning,” Gabe announced as he walked into the kitchen, his arrival as ill-timed as ever. Widowmaker looked between him and Sombra, her expression unreadable.

“Morning,” she said, grabbing her mug and walking from the kitchen. She looked back once, gaze landing everywhere but on the hacker, before heading back upstairs.

“Hey,” Sombra said, glaring miserably into her mug. Data was so much less fucking complex than relationships.

Gabe was silent, regarding the coffeepot suspiciously before turning his eyes back to Sombra. Far from his usual disdain, he seemed concerned. “Are you two, ah,” he asked, clearly uncomfortable.

“Are we  _what,_  Gabe?” she asked hotly, acutely conscious of the faded red welts, courtesy their last night at the chateau, still gracing the line of her collarbone.

“Okay,” he asked, unfazed by Sombra’s curt response. He stepped past her on the way to the cabinet to pluck a mug from its depths. He took his time doctoring his coffee, stirring the hot liquid, adding his customary dash of milk until it was light brown and almost a drinkable temperature. “Are you okay.”

Sombra was caught off-guard by the man’s interest, eyeing him warily before judging it to be sincere. That fact coupled with her pre-existing discontent neutered any snark before it had a chance to come out of her mouth, leaving her bereft of her usual snappy comebacks.

“I don’t know,” she said simply, sipping her coffee and immediately scalding her tongue. “It’s rough coming back to reality, I guess.”

Gabriel snorted and Sombra bristled instinctively, but when he leaned against the counter beside her, holding his mug in both hands, his posture was supportive, not mocking.

“I don’t think she’s ever had a vacation,” he started, looking across the kitchen in thought as he spoke. His calloused hands were too big for the mug, making it look comically small in comparison. “Not in ten years.”

“That’s readily apparent,” Sombra said, smiling back on their time at the chateau. “I swear she’d have shot at a dust bunny if I hadn’t hidden her rifle.”

“I hear you nearly had an altercation with some local teens?”

“Narrowly avoided quadruple homicide. When I’m the voice of reason in a situation, you know things are bad.”

Gabriel chuckled, offering her a sardonic smile. “You’re smart, Sombra. Too smart, sometimes, and I’m not entirely sure I trust you.” Sombra looked at him askance, uncertain where this conversation was headed, but Gabriel cut her off before she could reply. “But you’re good for her, and I think she needs it.”

Sombra opened and closed her mouth several times, uncertain how to respond to such a candid admission from the grizzled man. “I - thanks,” she settled on finally, lacking more complicated words at that moment. It wasn’t as though they’d been subtle about it, but she still felt strange talking like this with Gabe.

Gabriel, it seemed, felt no less comfortable by the situation, and after a moment of silence, cleared his throat and pushed away from the counter. As he headed out of the kitchen, he paused as he stepped over the threshold to look back at Sombra. “Just give her time. I’ve never seen her…happy before.”

Sombra bit back a caustic remark about how that was his fault in the first place, opting instead for a casual shrug of agreement. “Yeah,” she said, avoiding eye contact to look down at the polished wood floor. Gabe stood a moment longer before turning to leave Sombra alone with her thoughts.

* * *

Despite the unfamiliar sense of confusion she felt, Sombra made it a point to at least try and reach out to Widowmaker. She did what she could to drag the spider from her lair, but Widowmaker was either absent, unresponsive, or so deadpan in her responses that Sombra had nothing to work with. It was like staring back in time at the creature she had been before their casual flirting had become a natural intimacy, and it took Sombra the span of a week to accept the fact that it hurt.

Eventually she gave up and took Gabe’s advice, giving her space, and letting time do what it did best. It wouldn’t be the first time Widowmaker had snubbed her affections. It was just that, this time, she actually cared about receiving them.

As was customary whenever Sombra felt uncertain about something, she dove back into her work. She hacked everything, from personal dossiers across organizations - the intel she dredged up on Satya Vaswani in particular was just  _deliciously_ intriguing - to banking records for international corporations. Unsurprisingly, corruption was a theme across almost every lake of data she dredged, and before too long, the catharsis of watching other people be horrible to one another wore off, leaving her tired and uninspired. Humans were so predictably terrible; so easy to predict.

Everyone but Widowmaker.

Swiping away her console, she gave in for the night, logging what useful intel she’d found and instantly forgetting the rest. The world would still be corrupt in the morning. She had much bigger fish to fry, and much smaller regrets with which to lull herself to sleep.

As she changed into her pyjamas, Toulouse meowed plaintively for her attention, and she knelt down to offer it to him in an effort to shed some of her malaise.

“You miss your spider?” she asked him as he purred and pressed against his hand. He’d grown so much in the short time she’d had him, from a scrawny stray into a lanky, healthy adolescent with big paws and a more agreeable attitude than a cat had any business exhibiting. Toulouse flopped down on his side, paws kneading gently against her knee.

“Yeah, me too,” she said, smiling ruefully down at the purring ball of black and white fur. Giving him a final pat, she pushed herself to her feet and crawled into bed.

As her eyes began to close against the beckoning of sleep, she heard the sound of her bedroom door opening quietly, soft footfalls against the wooden floor making their way to the other side of the bed. A moment later the mattress beside her depressed softly and a single, cold arm wrapped itself around her waist.

She waited what felt like several long minutes, until Widowmaker’s breathing fell in time with her own, and she was certain she was actually awake and not dreaming.

“Widow?” she said, staring into the darkness before her, the only illumination the neon ambient glow off her computer.

The spider murmured against her shoulder blade, incoherent but affirming.

“I swear to god, if you snub me for a week ever again I am going to hack your visor with the  _least_ compelling porn I can find.”

The sniper’s cold lips smiled against her back, and Sombra felt her grip tighten around her.

“I will not,” she said. Then, softly, “I am sorry. I - I still forget how bridges work sometimes.”

“It’s cool,” she said, and after a brief spike of concern dissipated, realized it was true. Grabbing Widow’s fingers between her own, she closed her eyes and smiled. “We’re good.”


End file.
